Little Falls transcript., 1887-03-25
LEPROSY IN SAN FRANCIsco.

LEPRosY IN SAN FRANCISCO.
Three Brothers who Are Victims 81
tho Dread Disease-Medical Treas- h
mont tUnavailing-A Living
.t Death.
The Twenty-sixth street hospital,
better known as the pest house. con-
tains not . single case Of smallpox,
and has not had one for some timo,
says The San Francisco Chronicle, but
there are four patients there who are
booked as being afflicted with that most
dreaded Of all diseases, leprosy- One
OF these is James Seguye, a colored
man. native of St. Augustine, Fla,
who has been in the hospital since
March 8, 1880 There is some doubt
about his case. When he went to- the
hospital the skin was coming off his
hands, arms, and body in scales, which
resembled wheat bran, but after a
course of treatment the scaling off
ceased; the disease has made no appar-
ent progress since. As leprosy proper
has never been known to be affected by
treatment, but pursues it's march slow
ly, yet relentlessly, the physicians in
cline to tho opinion that Seguye's dis.
ease is something else, possibly of sy-
Philitic nature. However, as he is will
ing to remain and as the disease is un-
defined, he is still in the hospital He
washes the clothes of himself and the
three other patients, and calls himself
the laundryman of the institution, de-
claring that he is not an invalid.
The other three patients are three
brothers-Frank. Edward and Ernest
Bindt-who have been in the hospital
but short time and whose cases are
interesting for several reasons Their
father is white man and their mother
native of the Hawaiian islands Bindt
is at present employed in the Spreckels
sugar refinery, and frequently visits his
sons. The boys, who were born in the
Sandwich islands, would be taken for
tull-blooded Americans. The family re-
sided in the islands when the mother
was discovered to be afflicted with
symptoms of the disease. Bindt ex-
pended large sums of money in DOCTOR
ing. as the drowning man grasps at the
straw, but in vain. The disease is so
common and so generally understood
IN the islands that it could not long 20
undetected, and the family came to San
Francisco. Here Mrs. Bindt made
further efforts to combat the scourge,
hoping against hope that it might be
something else than leprosy, but about
three years ago DR.. Meares told her she
had the disease beyond doubt. and
she had to choose between isolation
here and a return to Honolulu. She
chose the latter, and is now an inmate of
the lepor colony at Moloka.
The disease showed itself sooner in
the second in age of the two boys than
in the others, and on May ~ last Ed
ward, aged Is, was admitted to the
hospital. He has a large patch of the
peculiar MISUNDERSTANDING flesh
under his left eye. On Aug. Is last his
two brothers-Frank, aged II, and
Ernest, IA years old-were admitted to
the hospital suffering from leprosy, and
there the three are and must remain in
a living tomb, dead to the world and
the world dead to them, decaying away
with persevering and remorseless dry
rot; finger joints, toes, and other
members dropping off one by one until
the end comes. With no hopes, aims,
nor ambitions with few pleasures, and
the shadow of their certain doom over
shadowing those few, they may be said
to exist instead of living.
Yet they are in measure cheerful.
They read the daily papers, and when
visited yesterday by reporter, were
gathered around fire with checker
board and several story books for re-.
creation. Jerry Sullivan, the steward,
says they have no lack of reading
matter, and on pleasant days they take
exercise in the hospital grounds, four
or five acres in extent playing various
games, but sometimes" he says,
they are blue and GLOOMY" at which
the reporter did not marvel when he
remembered that those four white
washed walls are the boundary Of their
world.
Frank and Ernest, the eldest and
youngest Of the three and last to enter
the hospital, are more affected than Ed
ward, with whom the disease appears
to be progressing more slowly. The
fingers of the three are bent and twist
ed into various contortions, while the
ends of many and the joints of some are
becoming contracted. White spots of
dead flesh appear on their bodies and
thighs, and into these spots a pin can
be run without the knowledge of the pa
tients. The spots are completely numb.
BY and by pieces Of flesh will fall of.
There is no sloughing, no formation of
pus, no pain-nothing but dead, dry
rot. The joint of finger becomes con-
tracted as though it had been compress
ed by having a cord tightly around it,
The end of the finger becomes numb,
and finally it drops of, without pain,
soreness Or bleeding. A new skin forms
over the stump. Other fingers and toes
drop off; then other joints from those
which have already been shortened.
The white 81 pots on the body swell into
projecting blister~like Jumps, and those,
too, in time drop of. 1t is silent,
painless, but long-drawn-out death.